Nabi said it made sense that his father would try and save someone who was in danger.

Daoud Nabi with his granddaughter.Courtesy Omar Nabi

"He's helped everyone who's a refugee," he said, describing how his father went to the airport to greet refugees, and help get them started in their new lives.

"Whether you're from Palestine, Iraq, Syria — he's been the first person to hold his hand up," Nabi said.

His work on behalf of refugees was most likely linked to the family's experience. In the 1980s when Nabi was six, they emigrated from Afghanistan to New Zealand in the wake of the Soviet Union's invasion.

Daoud Nabi, an engineer, had set out to grow roots in their new home, founding a mosque and becoming the president of a local Afghan association. The family prospered and grew to include nine grandchildren.

Now Nabi hardly knows what to do with himself.

"I'm a bit lost," he said. "He is a man of lots of knowledge and I've been his student for a long time."

Other families were also desperately searching for news. Janna Adnan Ezat from Christchurchposted on Facebookthat she has not been able to make contact with her son who was at one of the mosques.

"I don't know whether my son Hussein El Omari is alive or dead," she wrote. "The roads are blocked and we families are waiting at the hospital for word."

Ezat said her son's phone also rang without answer and that his car was not at home.

"I ask for your prayers," she wrote.

According to Ezat's Facebook profile, she is originally from Iraq.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern spoke out for the migrants and refugees who appeared to be the targets of what she deemed a terrorist attack.

"They have chosen to make New Zealand their home and it is their home. They are us," Ardern said in a press conference earlier Friday.

"Christchurch was the home of these victims," she added. "In fact for many, New Zealand was their choice."

Then Ardern addressed the attacks' perpetrators: "You may have chosen us but we utterly reject and condemn you."